One thing I think HR departments will all agree is that the next generation of millennial recruits will not stick around so readily as previous generations. Loyalty is going to become increasingly an issue – particularly as we move beyond the punctured bubble downturn of 2007-12. Yet large organisations have always had a problem about continuity and cohesion. As soon a company grows even beyond a hundred people and starts to operate on more than one geographical site a corporate identity crisis occurs. People cannot know everyone in the organization, especially when they do not interact with each other on a daily basis. As companies grow, even nodding acquaintances fall away. Team building does not easily build connections with those in more distant functions, whilst those in different locations, subsidiaries or affiliates frequently remain divided by a sense of “otherness” that is almost impossible to dislodge by any employer-led initiative.
Although the next generation is turned on digitally and is better connected than ever before they also value being treated as individuals and operating through personal contacts. It would be a mistake to tie them up into a matrix of impersonal controls, isolate them by replacing group training sessions by internet training modules and leave them to know more about the company from PR and advertising material than a process of face to face interaction.
The key then to declining loyalties is a new approach to workforce integration and corporate identity that forges a widening range of social connections at an individual level. Freelancers and small business owners know the value of networking, now those in large companies need to discover the power of internal networking.